A-Z Blog Challenge: H is for Hadrian's Wall by Tori L Ridgewood

It's that time again!!!  Unwritten and some 1000 other blogs participated last year, and this year looks to be even bigger! Just like last year, I've opened up the blog to host 26 fabulous writers, with each day of the challenge representing the letters of the alphabet from A-Z. I've asked each writer to focus on something that is personal to them, so we can learn more about each other. 

Please check out some of the other blogs in the challenge here: 

A-Z BLOG CHALLENGE 2013

H is for...Hadrian’s Wall 

By Tori L. Ridgewood

“H” is for Hadrian’s Wall -- one of many places I want to visit at some point in my life. It’s one of several of humanity’s erections in history that fascinate me. (In fact, this post was very nearly about History, in general.) I am a descendant of those barbarians. Hadrian’s Wall is part of my heritage. My ancestors include Scottish sheep herders, who intermarried with German mountain people hired as mercenary soldiers in Scotland.

To look at it now, one would never guess how imposing or deadly that structure would have appeared to the northerners. It’s still rather imposing, simply by virtue of its length and size. The ancient stones, now mossy and weathered, once fronted ditches lined with sharpened posts, beyond which were mounds of earth as additional fortification. The wall of stones was itself surmounted by wooden fencing, and patrolled by Roman soldiers to keep the perceived barbarian threat at bay.

It’s a romantic place, by all accounts. Wild and open to the elements, stretching from coast to coast, teeming with archeology and fortification, it speaks to human ingenuity, determination, and effort as much as either of those. It’s also a reminder, though a beautiful one, of the brutality of human nature. We know that its builders were neither a generally kind nor peaceable people, and therefore what they built was as much about reinforcing their ideals and values as it was for grandeur. 

But I wonder whether the Emperor ever suspected his mighty erection would stand as long as it has, and that twenty centuries later, people would stop to admire it? 

It takes approximately six days to walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall, according to the organization that looks after it (Hadrian’s Wall Trust), and that depends on the hardiness of the visitor and the strength of the prevailing winds. To trudge the span of the north of England, then, is to recreate a journey undertaken by minstrels and bards, soldiers and tradesmen, slaves and priests of ages long gone by. What ghosts still pace along the remains of Rome’s northernmost frontier? Do the Little People come out on full moons to dance on the top of the stones, now that human feet are no longer permitted to do so? 

Hadrian’s Wall has something that calls to my blood. Ancient and perhaps even arbitrary in location, it demarcates a distinct change in territory that lives to this day. 

I would enjoy high tea and low pubs south of the Wall. I would travel from Wales to Yorkshire, listening to the dialects and tracing the footsteps of characters both fictional and historical, too numerous to list here.

To the north, I would explore lochs and moors, look for traces of my ancestors in the ruins of abandoned kirks, and admire men in kilts tossing cabers and dancing over sabres. I would feel the wind on my face, feel the presence of the sea, and smell the good earth and stone under my feet.

Will I get to walk along Hadrian’s Wall, one day? I like to think so. Whether it’s in the cards may depend on the choices I make now and in the future. But it hovers in the back of my mind, one destination among many that I would dearly love to see transformed from dream to reality.

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Tori L. Ridgewood is a full-time secondary school teacher, a mother, a partner, and a writer and reader of all things fiction and non-fiction. Tori enjoys writing vampire / paranormal romances, sweet and humourous looks at pregnancy and childbirth, and horror fiction. Tori enjoys writing plays for her students, watching thunderstorms, walking her dog, needlework (quilting, cross-stitching, and embroidery), collecting miniature furniture, traveling, and watching movies. Her debut novel, Wind and Shadow: Book One of the Talbot Trilogy, is set to release soon from Melange Books.

For Excerpts and Updates:

Blog: Romance and Other Dangers:  torilridgewood.wordpress.com

Twitter: @ToriLRidgewood

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002151990046

Published Works: 

"Mist and Midnight" in Midnight Thirsts (Melange Books, 2011)

"Telltale Signs" in Spellbound 2011 (Melange Books, 2011)

"A Living Specimen" in Midnight Thirsts II (Melange Books, 2012)

"Brain Games" and "Bio-Zombie" in A Quick Bite of Flesh: An Anthology of Zombie Flash Fiction (Hazardous Press, 2012)

"Thy Will Be Done" in Dark Eclipse Issue No. 16 (Dark Moon Books, 2012)

"Tabitha's Solution" in Having My Baby (Melange Books, 2012)